Designing Transit Cities — 37 Years Later

Recently, a day-and-a-half symposium took place under the sponsorship of the Canadian Urban Institute, the TTC, and several other agencies. The title for this event was Designing Transit Cities.

The timing was very ironic and the irony unknown to the event organizers. 37 years ago this month, the City of Toronto and the TTC adopted a policy of streetcar retention at the urging of the Streetcars for Toronto Committee (SFTC) and other advocates, notably two members of City Council, the late William Kilbourn and (now Judge, retired) Paul Pickett, Q.C.

Our intent in SFTC was that Toronto would emulate other cities, mainly in Europe, and expand transit into the then-developing suburbs as a lower cost mode than subways so that Toronto would have a robust network that could compete with automotive travel. Needless to say, this did not happen.

Among the many comments heard through the symposium, there was a common thread, picking up from the title “Transit Cities”. Not “Transit for Cities” nor “Transit Oriented Cities”, but cities where transit is an integral and primary part of city design and planning. (I take modest credit for inventing the term, as described in another article.)

There was a lot of talk about the need to properly design the public realm, to establish a sense of place to which people will travel, where they will linger, where they want to be. A beautiful transit station surrounded by a parking lot is not a “Transit City”, it’s auto-oriented transit. If autos remain an inherent part of travel, the transit system is doomed to serve only a subset of its market, and the cost of auto ownership will remain an integral part of many people’s lives.

Too much transit, especially in Toronto, is still designed with the auto as its primary concern. Road space is dedicated to parking and turns, traffic signal timings may allegedly favour transit, but actually deter its operation. A review of the Zurich system began with the anecdote that the city started by firing all of its traffic engineers and replacing them with operational planners whose goal was to move transit and people, with auto traffic much lower in the pecking order.

In San Francisco, BART approaches design and development at its stations (which are surrounded by large tracts of parking) as a “ridership replacement policy”, not “parking replacement”. They are not interested in building a parking structure to replace a lot, but to develop their land in a way that will generate and increase ridership in its own right.

We heard a lot about “putting roads on a diet” and “taming the car”. All of this is very noble, but it must be seen in the context of each city and route where this was done. Toronto, idle in transit expansion for so long, does not have much in alternatives to offer to existing motorists.

For me, the saddest part of the whole symposium was how dated it all seemed. Many of the photographs, the principles of the case studies, the benefits shown, not just claimed, for LRT were almost identical to the position advocated by SFTC almost four decades ago.

For our troubles, we were vilified by the professionals both at the TTC and at Queen’s Park where investment in high-tech boondoggles, the search for the “missing link” between buses and subways, drove the agenda. The TTC was never an advocate for LRT, and there remain strongly anti-LRT sentiments in some areas within the staff. Metrolinx, as this decade’s incarnation of Queen’s Park’s influence, has only recently come to see LRT as a worthwhile part of its network after a long attempt to foist alternative technologies onto the Transit City proposal.

Our 1973 proposal for LRT on Spadina waited until 1997 for service to begin. We opposed the ICTS system on the SRT, itself originally planned as an LRT line, and only now see TTC and Metrolinx recognizing that LRT is a more appropriate technology for extension and integration of the SRT into a wider network.

While Toronto dallied with ICTS and a few vanity subway extensions (think of the Sheppard and Vaughan lines like personalized license plates, but much more expensive), the rest of the world turned to LRT. One presentation from Paris’ RATP noted that from 1977 to 2013, the number of “tramways” in France will have grown from 3 systems with 3 lines to 25 systems with 60 lines.

The idea, to quote former Mayor Lastman, that “real cities don’t use streetcars” shows how the rest of the world has passed Toronto by. Yes, they are impressed by what we are now attempting (even though a great deal is as yet unfunded), but they are also aware that Toronto stopped leading North American transit systems years ago.

Catching up with the world also means that social and political arrangements, the balance of power between motorists and transit, the culture that truly puts transit first, must evolve in Toronto at a rate unlike that seen elsewhere. Despite recent funding announcements, we are still in a project-based model, not a transit model where money flows to an overall transit plan automatically, and each project does not have to justify itself as a political entity. Transit has been underfunded for so long, the jump to a proper level means a big shift in government priorities or the imposition of new fees, tolls, taxes, levies, whatever name you wish to use. We can’t have a bigger transit system without paying for it.

Transit must exist to serve the City and the Region, not simply as a make-work project rewarding deeper and longer holes with bigger budgets. Transit must not be a dumping ground for the technology of a well-connected vendor, but should embrace world standards and experience. No longer can we claim that Ontario has a better way of doing everything, assuming it ever did. Transit must not be held hostage to so-called partnerships with the private sector, sweetheart deals with details shrouded in commercial secrecy. If there is a profit to be made at public expense, then let the public enjoy the benefits.

Expanding transit’s role will be difficult and it will meet much opposition given Toronto’s record, but there is no alternative. That new role requires a new way of thinking about the city. We will not be car-free, but we must be a city where a car isn’t a necessity for every trip outside of downtown, where trips on the dense inner part of the system are taken as a preferred choice, not on sufferance. People should not be able to walk to their destination as a reasonable, if resented, alternative to the TTC.

Designing for Transit Cities means a fundamental change in how we think about city building and transit’s role. With the coming Mayoral election, some may be tempted to ask, yet again, for a pause, for a rethink. We have paused for decades, a convenient way of giving lip service to transit while building nothing. Any candidate with such a “plan” is worthy of little but contempt.

Some may not like “Mayor Miller’s” plan, but that doesn’t mean the plan is invalid. There are parts of Transit City even I think should change, and parts of the Metrolinx Big Move as well. Stopping to twiddle our thumbs, to draw an “anti-Miller map”, would be a huge waste. Toronto needs to build and to operate a much more robust transit system. That will take money and time, but the choice, the direction is unavoidable.

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38 thoughts on “Designing Transit Cities — 37 Years Later”

All correct, and yet… Unless the city has the power of a province under the constitution, it can never happen.

Steve: If we actually had some “vision” at Queen’s Park, there would be hope for a collaborative effort. However, Queen’s Park doesn’t like cede power, even to one of its own agencies. My bet is that if “Metrolinx II” starts to actually say anything remotely challenging, we will see a change in the Board, or another agency.

I remember when I first came to Toronto about thirty years ago to become a citizen, I was told by a transit engineer in Washington, D.C. that Toronto had had the best transit system in North America for several decades (it was far ahead of most of the other systems on the continent), and that only one other system in the world was rated better. I had immigrated here because of what I saw as a city leadership and citizenry with an apparent vision for what they both for their home. Over time I’ve lived here, I’ve seen the vision vanish from residents’ minds, like a long-forgotten dream; politicians squandering the lead the city had in transit; and citizens becoming apathetic to the potential of the city, indeed even to only what they want of it.

It’s become so bad that more than a few times in the past few years, I’ve had the thought of returning from whence I came flit through my thoughts, each time startling me that the thought had occurred. I am shocked that it has come to this, given what Toronto was to both itself and the rest of the world. (Thank goodness for Steve and people like the contributors to Spacing magazine to reassure me that some hope remains.)

Without reaching for the stars, we’ll stay in the gutter. It’s time to demand both a long-term, funded vision for our city and the accountability for it of our candidates. Taking the accountant’s view of the process is what happened in the 1980s, and I shudder at the thought of that recurring: nickel-and-dimed, lowest common denominator, depressing, etc. (just the way much of the TTC looks today). We should demand to know candidates’ visions for the city, not just how they will pay for transit. Then, we can see what’s practicable. Without the dreams, we’ll remain in the dreary office with the bean counters.

Steve: There was an intriguing comment from a few speakers at the symposium who were involved with the early days of the LRT renaissance in North America. Systems that built on the cheap using available rights-of-way (which often didn’t run where people wanted to travel) and building lines through places without addressing what those places were or could become, those system failed to live up to their hype. Implementing transit isn’t just about drawing lines on maps and pretending that a carpark is a “mobility hub” to use Metrolinx’ favourite term.

You say you want to create a pro-transit culture. The way I read it, is that you want to change the way people think – you want them to think of Public Transit as a choice and not an alternative. I agree with this.

At the same time, there are those out there who want to change the way people act – make Public Transit a necessity and not a choice. They want to create traffic problems to force people on to buses.

Before we go any further in developing a new transportation plan for the GTA as a whole, we need to decide which of these two models we will be following.

Compare if you will, Toronto with London and New York. Here, Transit is an alternative. In NYC it is a Choice. In London, it is a necessity. Personally, I want citizens to walk out of their front doors with a smile, as they debate all the quick, efficient, and affordable ways they can commute, be it by car, bus, taxi, subway, train, bicycle, LRV, or walking.

Toronto is now embracing light rail not because it actually prefers light rail, but because subways have become prohibitively expensive. How many times have we heard Giambrone and Miller say, “ideally we would build subways … BUT …”?

Even light rail is beyond our means. We can barely run the system as is, and with no north-south light rail lines on the horizon anytime soon, I just don’t see it as a true light rail network. By the time Finch, Sheppard, and Eglinton open, the tide will probably shift back to subways.

Steve: What is really annoying is that north-south is out of fashion (and has been for a few decades) because it is perceived as being core oriented. However Jane will never have the demand for a full subway. Don Mills should have one to Eglinton as I have often argued here, but the TTC still persists in studying the corridor based on the old scheme for a busway. The major new NS lines will be on GO with substantial improvement, if it is ever implemented, in the Richmond Hill and Barrie corridors, and to a lesser extent on the Uxbridge subdivision service.

“How many times have we heard Giambrone and Miller say, “ideally we would build subways … BUT …”?”

I think that they are saying this because Torontonians are used to slow, unreliable service on the streetcars downtown. Clearly most people haven’t traveled enough to places like France, Germany or even Calgary and Edmonton to see how LRT is done properly. Hopefully IF the Transit City lines are build properly public opinion will shift.

Steve writes, apropos of N-S transit: “The major new NS lines will be on GO with substantial improvement, if it is ever implemented, in the Richmond Hill and Barrie corridors, and to a lesser extent on the Uxbridge subdivision service.”

GO lines not grid-oriented N-S routes; they’re radial routes that head more-or-less north from the core. For that matter, they don’t go nearly far enough east or west to help, even at the north end.

There will be a nice spacing of E-W routes: Bloor-Danforth, Eglinton, Finch/Sheppard, but N-S lines will still fan from Union Station to a fairly narrow spread by the time the subway and GO lines get to the north of the city.

A true grid system of rapid transit would have a couple of pure N-S lines in the west end: Jane and Islington or Kipling; and two or so in the east end: Don Mills and McCowan or Markham Rd.

My current commute, from Long Branch to Seneca’s Finch E. campus, is thankfully only for eight months or so. While I can avoid the Bloor-Danforth by the simple expedient of taking the Queen car (which is maybe a ten-minute penalty for generally a nicer ride under the open sky) there is no non-masochistic way of avoiding the Yonge line. (Fortunately, Wednesday I have no classes, so I missed that fiasco last week.)

True, once east-west rapid routes are in place, I could take a N-S express bus and then rapid transit E-W, avoiding both Bloor and Yonge subways. It still isn’t an LRT grid, though!

I have tried a few alternatives to the Yonge line: Victoria Park (lots of older suburbia to admire), Don Mills (sloooow), Kipling, and the Highway 27 express. Alas, getting to the two west-end possibilities requires a dismal long ride along Finch or Steeles, followed by another long dismal ride….then followed by a transfer to yet another bus (to get south of Bloor/Dundas).

Steve: I wasn’t suggesting that they are appropriate, but to a planner with the level of sophistication of, oh, Metrolinx, the map looks as if it is full of N-S routes. They do not understand local service at all there, hence the priority on E-W Transit City lines.

Steve wrote, ‘The idea, to quote former Mayor Lastman, that “real cities don’t use streetcars” shows how the rest of the world has passed Toronto by.’

This quote belongs up there with other Lastman’s quotes in all their brilliancy along with his CNN quote about the World Health Organization, “I don’t know who this group is. I’ve never heard of them before.”

““How many times have we heard Giambrone and Miller say, “ideally we would build subways … BUT …”?”

“I think that they are saying this because Torontonians are used to slow, unreliable service on the streetcars downtown. Clearly most people haven’t traveled enough to places like France, Germany or even Calgary and Edmonton to see how LRT is done properly. Hopefully IF the Transit City lines are build properly public opinion will shift.”

One of the reasons that the downtown street car service is so unreliable is because the city is not serious about transit otherwise why would they allow taxis stands on King St to be used during the rush hour. If the people in the towers need taxis let them use a side entrance or provides a permanent easement on their property for pedestrians so that a taxi stand can be cut into the sidewalk and leave the curb lane free. They also need to change the legislation to make it easier to tag and tow illegally parked trucks and couriers who block the curb lane in rush hour.

Another problem is the way lines are managed. The most important priority seems to be getting the operators in the proper place followed by the run number. Passengers seem to be a distant third in the grand scheme of things. Last Thursday I was driving up Spadina from Quuen’s Quay at 5:30 p.m. There were 5 cars between Lake Shore and Queen’s Quay with 3 more south of Bremner. This is one third of the service. When I went past King there was one car turning at Charlotte but most of the south bound cars were going to the Quay. I only passed one car northbound and every island had at least 250 people waiting for a car. I guess they could get the cars back on time by going to the Quay and forget the fact that there was no service north bound north of Bremner except for the one car that turned at King.

I never cease to be amazed at how screwed up a line that has only 3 blocks of on street running can get. From observing the computer display of the route it needs to be able to turn north bound cars somewhere. Connaught labs would have been nice but apparently that cannot happen. They also need another south bound loop north of King for time when Charlotte gets fouled and they use Wolsely or McCaul in an emergency or these two far out of the way to be useful.

Steve: There is no loop at Spadina Circle because the UofT’s Earth Science Building, under construction at the time, complained about possible vibration disturbing their sensitive equipment. I won’t say anything about the trucks that roar up and down the street, but at the time, nobody in Toronto knew much about resilient trackbeds.

Edmonton and Vancouver have also some up with the benefits of LRT and subways – the service runs underground (like a subway) in the downtown core, much like how Eglinton LRT is supposed to. That’s that thing with subways – they benefit from not having to deal with traffic on street level.

Personally, while I agree with having LRT, I also see the benefit of subways – subways are better for routes with more ridership.

Transit has to be intergrated – with service appropriate to the route. However, transit also needs to be managed properly. If we are not going to ROW every streetcar route, then the City needs to provide better handling of the streets (especially in the downtown core) to keep cars out of the way of the streetcars.

Steve: For clarity, Vancouver is not running LRT. Their Skytrain system, both the original and the recently opened Canada line, are HRT by definition because they cannot tolerate any intersecting traffic (ie street operation). That’s a fundamental difference between the two — LRT doesn’t have to run with g rade crossings or mixed traffic, but it can if the situation is appropriate. HRT requires reserved right-of-way everywhere.

“A review of the Zurich system began with the anecdote that the city started by firing all of its traffic engineers and replacing them with operational planners whose goal was to move transit and people, with auto traffic much lower in the pecking order.”

This reminds me when I asked about increasing the time for pedestrians to cross in the northbound direction at the Bloor/Church St. intersection. I was bugged that the walk light is delayed to favour largely non-existent motor vehicles turning west onto Bloor from the north. “It meets provincial standards,” I was told.

Consider all the intersections which have signs like, “Pedestrians – Cross on the West Side.”

Perhaps the most infamous one in the city is Charles St E, Mt. Pleasant, and Jarvis. To cross on the south side of the intersection eastbound, a pedestrian must go north across Charles, then east across Jarvis, then south across half of Mt. Pleasant, then east across the second half of Mt. Pleasant, 4 SEPARATE WALK SIGNALS!

Steve: This sort of thing gives traffic engineers a bad name, but more importantly shows that there is not the political will to sat “figure out how to make it better”, and lock the engineers in a room with bread and water until they do so. Of course, some changes would require inconveniencing motorists, and politicians like to hide behind their professionals and “standards” as much as anyone.

@Steve: There is no loop at Spadina Circle because the UofT’s Earth Science Building, under construction at the time, complained about possible vibration disturbing their sensitive equipment. I won’t say anything about the trucks that roar up and down the street, but at the time, nobody in Toronto knew much about resilient trackbeds.

To me, a very short piece of track between the north & south bound tracks at Spadina Circle was always a no-brainer to make the shortest ever looping track. It could still be done quickly & cheaply, and it really should be, as it’s obvious the TTC can’t run streetcars on the 510 Spadina PROW w/ proper spacing. As Steve says, the resilient trackbeds will do the trick to greatly reduce the vibration.

Hmmm, BART’s idea w.r.t ridership replacement policy is interesting. I feel the TTC is stuck on the nickels and dimes of each single fare (witness their response to token hoarding), instead of thinking about themselves as an integral part of the city, and say offering timed transfers so that people can pop off and on the streetcar for shopping etc. Surely we could model the net increase in revenue to the city due to increased economic activity stimulated by 2 hour transfers, and not just the loss to the TTC due to two fare not being paid? I am willing to bet there is a net benefit.

Steve: According to a recent statement by Adam Giambrone, the TTC has already estimated the cost of implementing a timed transfer at $15-million annually. The basic question is whether we want that option as part of the overall fare mix, and would we pay a slightly higher fare to get the two-hour privilege. This is a good example of how the TTC pre-empts debate by their “sky is falling” attitude.

Steve: “There is no loop at Spadina Circle because the UofT’s Earth Science Building, under construction at the time, complained about possible vibration disturbing their sensitive equipment. I won’t say anything about the trucks that roar up and down the street, but at the time, nobody in Toronto knew much about resilient trackbeds.”

In my second year of Engineering at U ot T, I did a metallurgy lab in the old Mining Building on the North side of College at McCaul. We hung a known mass from a specially grown filament of wire and were to plot its stretch versus time to get Young’s Modulus. This graph should have had a very long linear region from which we could get the slope. Our graph instead turned out to be a three hour record of the Carlton service because every time a street car went across the special work there was a wiggle in the graph. You could tell eastbound from westbound by the length of the wiggle. Short turn cars had a very small wiggle. So I guess there might be some reason for their concern since I believe that Earth Sciences also used to use this building.

For Ed’s benefit the Newmarket Sub gives you a basically north south line from College and Lansdowne to King City. The Uxbridge Sub is also north south from Scarborough Junction to Milliken. The Bala Sub is; well, it is the Bala Sub and it tends to go north south with a scenic tour of the Don Valley. It is not in a location to be useful as a service with in Toronto but the other two could be if the right type of service were put on them.

Alas, the dinosaurs and revisionist thinking still persists. Here in Ottawa, Andrew Haydon, one of the proponents of the Transitway, has been raging against implementation of LRT, arguing buses can handle all transit needs and that LRT is now considered antiquated technology. I wonder how he got so knowledgeable about LRT, and where, to call it antiquated, since he was one of many who in his time refused to even look at the possibility.

Steve: Ottawa is a sad example of a town where the highway builders, masquerading as transit gurus, prevailed.

“For Ed’s benefit the Newmarket Sub gives you a basically north south line from College and Lansdowne to King City. The Uxbridge Sub is also north south from Scarborough Junction to Milliken. The Bala Sub is; well, it is the Bala Sub and it tends to go north south with a scenic tour of the Don Valley. It is not in a location to be useful as a service with in Toronto but the other two could be if the right type of service were put on them.”

The Newmarket sub is not far enough west to do much good. It’s got a nice connection at St. Clair and Eglinton, but the Spadina line isn’t that far to the east as the PROW LRT runs. I also wonder how many heavy-rail stations could be fitted on this line. Contrast that with a Jane LRT, and a Kipling LRT, both of which have proven demand all along the corridor.

I don’t know enough about Scarborough to comment in detail on schemes for the east end.

ED: I wasn’t saying that the Newmarket, Bala or Uxbridge sub would make great heavy rapid transit lines just that they were essentially north south. If the TTC and the provincial Government along with GO transit would have talked to each other instead of protecting turf in the 70’s and 80’s they might have built the Spadina line along the Newmarket sub and made it into part of a high speed downtown relief line and left the University Subway to end at St. George.

Steve: The Spadina subway and expressway go where they do because a developer had the land assembly to build Yorkdale. Also, the subway was used to sanitize the expressway proposal.

Steve said: “The Spadina subway and expressway go where they do because a developer had the land assembly to build Yorkdale. Also, the subway was used to sanitize the expressway proposal.”

Which means Toronto was never really the Transit City it lionized itself as, in spite of a transit system that really was top notch, but, because of the more prevalent car-bias, was doomed to be mired in traffic chaos. I well remember some of the promotional bumpf for Transit 2011 that stated “Imagine what Toronto would be like today if only the original Yonge Subway was in place”. Well, yes I CAN imagine, because in 2009 Toronto has only 2 USEFUL subway lines and no possible way of catching up to its needs without money and determination. To see both will be a miracle.

That’s also part of the problem – there is no point building an LRT line (or a subway) to create a route that will have little potential growth. However, if there is demand for better service (think of the current Transit City LRT lines, especially along streets like Finch) or where there is potential for service.

The first part is easy, and what the TTC seems to do. They build up a route once it shows a demand. However, we also need to build lines to areas (or through areas) that are being developed or redeveloped. The lines should be developed before the area(s) along the route (or at its end point) are being built. That way transit becomes an essential part of that area, not just a second thought.

Toronto Streetcars said : “we also need to build lines to areas (or through areas) that are being developed or redeveloped. The lines should be developed before the area(s) along the route (or at its end point) are being built. That way transit becomes an essential part of that area, not just a second thought.”

The TTC used to do that–in the 1920’s. It’s fascinating to see a Peter Witt along St. Clair Ave. passing by a working farm! Now, granted, there are few working farms left in Toronto except for the North-east quadrant, but building it and they will come seems only to be used by the TTC, or the city, to cover up mistakes like the Spadina Expressway, or vanity basement trainsets like the Sheppard line.

Concurred. I know from associates that Speppard Ave. E. has seen more development since the subway was built – however, we still need LRT/subway lines built to areas that can be (re)developed, or where demand exists.

In this day and age, once an LRT line (or subway) is built, developers can more easily get development started (the rules were changed to promote development around transit.)

I was quite happy to see City Council finally move from fixation on subways and accept building a network of LRT lines through its Transit City plan, but it still feels more like a fall back “we would have gone for subways if we had the money” rather than as a primary plan. Unfortunately I suspect most still see Transit City as a bunch of streercar routes, similar to what they see downtown. Moreover I always get the sense that subways are preferred since not only are they nice big mega-projects perfect for ribbon cutting, but they also that they don’t take space from roadways. Support transit for those that need it but still leave the roadways free for car drivers. Unless the new LRT routes run in their own surface right-of-way separate from the roadway, such as an old railway line or a hydro right-of-way)or underground, these new line will take away road space. Sad that St Clair was such a fiasco – the Sheppard LRT is already facing opposition from some of the merchants along the line, fearing the same as with St Clair.

Personally I prefer surface rail – you see the neighbourhoods through which you travel and it looks like the new LRT line might be as fast or faster than the buses now on those routes. Alas, in trying to mitigate the impact on auto traffic, there seem to be some rather odd dealing with left-turn traffic (a trade off for the loss of road space?).

“Moreover I always get the sense that subways are preferred since not only are they nice big mega-projects perfect for ribbon cutting, but they also that they don’t take space from roadways. Support transit for those that need it but still leave the roadways free for car drivers. Unless the new LRT routes run in their own surface right-of-way separate from the roadway, such as an old railway line or a hydro right-of-way)or underground, these new line will take away road space. Sad that St Clair was such a fiasco – the Sheppard LRT is already facing opposition from some of the merchants along the line, fearing the same as with St Clair.”

There is also a numbers game when it comes to subways vs. LRT – one subway train can carry more people then an LRT. Then there is the cost to build and maintain the line.

I like seeing what is going on outside – it is just not always easy. For example, Queen Street should have an underground streetcar/LRT operation for the downtown core as the street is narrow (only space for two lanes in each direction and little to no room to widen the street), and that the route is already busy. Sometimes an LRT is simply more practical underground – which is also why people probably support subways over LRT – “if it has to be underground, make it a subway.”

As for opposition to LRT lines – it seems to come in part due to two main reasons that I can see: 1) The line does not exist or has never hade its own ROW (or in the case of St. Clair, the ROW was removed decades ago), and 2) that the TTC is not implementing a time based transfer. I can understand business owners complaining when a ROW is supposed to make transit more easier for people to use, but if people have to pay multiple times to use transit it may discourage some patronage to their store.

People will become less depend on their cars if transit is seen as being a reliable and affordable alternative to driving. However, as long as people have the option that the car is better, public transit will face an uphill battle.

A great rant, Steve and right on! I too have been disheartened to see the popular reaction against Light rail in the star. I hear that the opposition to light rail is even worse in Kitchener where they are actually planning a light rail line after having done everything wrong since they tore up the streetcar tracks in 1947.

Both Ed and Phil Pitch mention enjoying the view while on surface transit. Wow! What a revolutionary concept that is!

The construction of St. Clair has been a fiasco during constuction but what will really count is the operation, which we have yet to see. Since traffic will no longer be a problem may I suggest that the streetcars operate at two speeds, stop and fast. One should not see streegtcars ambling along and being past by cars. If the schedules have too much slack tighten them.

When GO Trasnsi first began operations along the Lakeshore their trains often went speeding past bumper to bumper rush hour traffic on the Gardiner Expressway. It was said at the time that the engineers were told to blow their air horns when this occurred in order to draw the atenttion of the frustrated drivers to the speeding trains.

I referred above to the possible LRT in Kitchener. Have you any views on that? Even my railfan cousin who lives there seems unsure about it and he says the opposition is massive. They’ve even brought Andy Heydon in from Ottawa.

But it strikes me that Kitchener has, over many years, written the book on how to wreck a city and it would be nice to see them do something right.

People want subways. They know more or less what they’re going to get: a fast and more consistently reliable way to travel across medium distances and occasionally longer distances as well. They see the economic development which occurs in designated areas. Of course no one really wants on-street LRT because it is an inferior mode which is subject to accidents on the streets, red lights without signal priority (the standard approach in Toronto), time wasted for processing fares, etc. Subways are not prohibitively expensive, that’s just residue thinking from the Mike Harris era. We have a government willing to make large investments and it is possible to implement road tolls. Transit City’s $15 billion will also build a lot of subway. You can’t say “we can’t afford subway lines” and then say Transit City is affordable. You get less subway, but in 15-30 you can expand on what you already have, instead of only then building your first new segments of subway.

We already have Queen’s Quay, Queensway, Spadina, and soon St. Clair West in terms of streetcars running in ROWs. These are almost Transit City lines except without the signal priority and more frequent stops. So if the Transit City concept of LRT is so sensible, why hasn’t the TTC pulled it off given all these opportunities?

Steve: First off, the capital cost of subways is not a left over from Mike Harris, it is a simple fact. The projected cost of the Richmond Hill extension is pushing half a billion per km, and the Spadina extension is over $300-million. (Part of the difference is inflation, part is the construction methods for the two lines.) The advantage of LRT is that it does not have to be underground everywhere.

This brings us to the TTC’s implementations so far. All of them are at the very low end of what “LRT” is. The stops are close together, the traffic signals often work against rather than in favour of transit, fares are collected mostly on a pay-as-you-enter basis with a single stream of passengers and a farebox. St. Clair has the additional problem that it’s not actually finished yet, and the project got a lot of quite unnecessary bad press thanks to the incompetence (that is the only word) among project management, designers and various utilities that didn’t co-ordinate their work or made arbitrary changes. The TTC wants to avoid this in future projects, but they have an uphill battle against the legitimate perception that LRT is a bad thing.

We won’t see St. Clair cars running to Lansdowne until late December, and at that time we will also see the effect of the new, faster schedules and the claimed improvements in traffic signal operations.

Yes, people ask for what they know, and the TTC has given “LRT” a huge black eye in Toronto. The reputation has been saved by the fact that many Torontonians come from and travel to other cities where LRT is “done better”, and they despair at how backward Toronto is.

The problem with building LRTs along Sheppard East and Eglinton is that when it is time to upgrade them to subways (i.e. as soon as the ridership is there), TTC will drag its feet for years (most likely decades) to upgrade the lines.

Steve: Getting to the point that ridership is there would also require massive redevelopment of the corridors, something that is unlikely. The whole idea of a network of lines is to avoid funnelling all of the riders into a few very expensive and congested conduits like the Yonge subway. I fail to understand how the assumption that the TTC (or whatever it will be) would drag its feet decades from now is a justification for spending billions we don’t have today.

By the way, it’s worth noting that the grand Metrolinx plan is threatened because Queen’s Park is short of cash. TTC isn’t the only organization that can drag its feet, and don’t assume any other agency would do better.

Steve, How many, if any, of the planned new Light rail lines actually have reliable funding? It would be tragic after all this time time and effort when the approvals are fiinally passed if the province were to bail out on us now. I’m sorry that David Miller won’t be in office to keep things on line and as I said in another posting, I’d love to see him made head of Metrolynx.

Steve: That would be truly a deep irony for all the folks at Mettolinx that worked so hard to sabotage the Transit City scheme, and who still have great distrust of local politicians. Having dumped Miller from the first Board, I don’t think Queen’s Park would be too quick to put a non-elected Miller back on there as an executive.

Infrastructure Ontario is also a meddlesome force as they would dearly love to justify their existence with a nice fat transit construction project under their care.

The Finch, Sheppard, Eglinton and SRT (to Sheppard) lines all have funding.

1) As for the Yonge Line – that’s why when need the DRL and also for some sort of way of getting people downtown (if that’s where the demand is) via either the University-Spadina Line or LRT lines operating north-south from the DRL end points (of continuing the DRL north.)

2) Steve’s point that an LRT does not have to run underground (is thus cheaper compared to a subway line.) This is true, however, there are parts of the current TTC subway that are not underground. My point is that while a subway normally runs underground, it does always have to be 100% underground – especially once it’s outside the downtown core (actually the TTC, if I am not mistaken, has sold off some space above the Yonge Line to make some more cash, even though those portions were orginally built out in the open.)

Steve: The difference with LRT and subways when they are not underground is that a subway must have a completely dedicated right-of-way while LRT can run in the middle of the street. This eliminates the need for underpasses or trenched construction such as on the Yonge line from Rosedale north.

In a few cases the TTC has taken a subway that could quite well have run on the surface and put it underground to placate neighbouring residents and businesses. A good example is the line from Warden to Kennedy Station originally proposed for the surface (just as the line west of Warden is), but buried anyhow. There are other examples of this, some not even built yet. The common problem is that hydro corridors and old railways may look attractive for surface construction, but some go right through residential communities. LRT lines built in the middle of a street are already in a noisy location.

The TTC does not sell the space above its lines, but leases the air rights on a long-term basis. The recent incident at Jackes Avenue with Enbridge gas cutting into an old bridge deck is in the middle of such an area.

Well, I just got back from a vacation in Lisbon, Portugal, and I have quite a bit to report.

First off, there are three transit systems in Lisbon. First is the Lisbon Metro, the subway, which has 4 lines and covers a wide swath of the Lisbon proper. The stations are much smaller, so are their subway cars, and the frequency of the line during off-peak hours is around 8-10 minutes by my observation. Fares are usually a flat 0.80 euro, regardless of age.

The second transit system is the Carris bus system. Because they do not integrate with the subway, many routes make their destinations to the heart of the city. Some do provide connections to the subway, but transfers between two bus routes are not allowed, by my knowledge. A single fare is 1.4 euro.

The third transit system is the Comboios de Portugal, the commuter rail. However, it is much better than GO transit in the sense that the headways are a lot shorter and the fares much cheaper. A fare from the heart of Lisbon to the town of Sintra some 30 kilometers away cost 1.7 euro, not much more than the Carris Bus.

All three provide some form of pass that allows users to ride a combination of the three systems, and all three subscribe to the same smart-card technology, meaning that one card can be used on all three transit systems with card readers at all transit entry points. For those intent on switching between transit systems, passes can be provided. For myself, I used a combination day pass for the Metro and the Carris Bus, which cost me 3.7 euro. With the present exchange rate, this translates to about $5.50 CAD, much cheaper than the day pass the TTC offers.

From my hotel room near the Lisbon business core, I had plenty of options to get to where I needed to go. I could take an express bus, or a local bus to the Metro. Either way, the transit system was easy to use, the service was always friendly, and even better, hardly any cars during the rush hour. Why is that? Lisbon is a business city much like Toronto and has a smaller ratio of highways relative to its population. The answer is that transit in Lisbon has been accepted as a viable alternative. Despite being a quarter of Toronto’s population, Lisbon has given many options of getting from point A to B in Lisbon via public transit, whereas Toronto only has one. And with the use of the Day pass, I find that it is able to do a lot more without gouging the customers. I have yet to confirm, but someone did tell me that the three major transit operators are not unionized, that may have something to do with the low fares and high quality of service.

I detest conversations with transit people who always maintain the best way to provide public transit is to make it harder for people to use the car. Not in Lisbon, as I hear it, the best way to make transit viable is to make it easier to use instead. They do charge for parking in their lots but no one uses it because it is much easier to take a bus. No waiting long minutes, buses run on such high frequencies it is hard to imagine how it was built before.

Toronto could use a few pointers from Lisbon. Previously, I was in favour of an integrated fare with the 905 in order to make it easier for the 905 residents to use transit. What I believe now is in a transferless transit environment, with a fare charged on each leg, and not just the entire trip, no paper transit to continue a trip. In its stead, the use of a cheaper day pass, which would allow users free reign on the transit system. Secondly, the TTC needs to stop thinking about ways to screw car users and find ways to embrace them. That attitude shift can go long ways to tearing people from their automobiles. Once you have the trust of the car drivers, everyone is a winner.

Lisbon works as a transit city because effort was made to make it more attractive than a car by promoting transit without alienating car users. The effort is evident in the city that doesn’t have crowded roads in rush hours, but not in Toronto as it is clear that the TTC has no intention of making things easier for its best customers while trying to constantly beat up the suburban commuters.

Steve: To be fair (to the extent I feel like it) to the TTC, an important point you imply, but don’t actually state, is that Lisbon has obviously been doing this sort of thing for a long time. Being a “transit city” is not something that happens overnight. They were clearly building a frequent system covering the city at the same time we were building lots of roads and fighting over where the next billion dollar subway would go. The attitude to transit here was to always do just enough, but getting ahead of the curve was never part of Toronto’s strategy even though we fooled the rest of the world on that one, for a time.

As for the union issue, I think your personal bias may be showing here. You don’t know whether the staff are in a union, but you make the leap from friendly service to “non-union”. That’s unfair to the many union employees in many jobs who are productive, friendly, dedicated workers, and it gives a free ride to the non-union staff (including a lot of the management of those workers, myself included) who can be complete bozos when it comes to employee or public relations.

Let’s just say that I doubt the recent fare increase fiasco at the TTC was the product of union labour. It was a management cock-up from the beginning.

The non-union comment comes from a colleague who is from Lisbon himself. Say what you want about my personal bias, but my observations appear to be bolstered by events that happened in Paris, France, while trying to grab a flight back to Toronto. France is a large pro-union country, and the events (which I will not state here) leave a bad taste in my mouth with regards to unions.

Yes, Lisbon was building a transit system for a long time, but the point I am trying to re-iterate is that the city itself did not try anything to gouge car drivers and suburban commuters. Talking to my colleague from Portugal, I also learned that Lisbon also charges for Parking, but only after their complex transit system was built. That pales in comparison to Toronto in which the city is trying to bully people to use an inadequate system that has few options (i.e. road tolls, of which Lisbon has none), or trying to punish suburban people trying to go the extra mile to take transit (i.e. charging for free parking). My point is that the transit system must be built first before things such as road and parking tolls can even be considered. My fear is that there may be more roads into Downtown Toronto before this Transit city is finished because the Car drivers want a faster way downtown without having to pay through the nose for it.

Someone forwarded me an article about how the removal of expressways actually improved the city, akin to what Toronto wants to do with the Gardiner, but again, the big difference is that Toronto doesn’t have an adequate transit option as a decent alternative. Once I find that article, I’ll post it here.

“In a few cases the TTC has taken a subway that could quite well have run on the surface and put it underground to placate neighbouring residents and businesses. A good example is the line from Warden to Kennedy Station originally proposed for the surface (just as the line west of Warden is)”

Except the line west of Warden is subject to outages in winter due to drifting snow…

Steve: That section has particular problems because of its location. Having said this, the basic issue is whether any subway advocate should be allowed to get away with quoting surface construction cost estimates if the lines will be entirely subgrade for various reasons.

Steve:
You make some great points as always, but support in Scarborough for the Sheppard, Eglinton and Scar-Malvern LRT and Transit City in gerenal is low for a number of reason obvious to anyone living in Scarorough.

In summary, the proposed project will do little to enhance the quality of lives of people living in Scarborough, as it represents an attempt by downtown centric planners to suggest that what is good for St. Clair or Spadina Avenue is good enough for giant swaths of Scarborough’s population, which is approaching the same size as the old City of Toronto.

The question that should be considered is:

“What is appropriate private auto use in Scarborough, and how can rapid (not just public) transit be positioned as a faster, more reliable alternative?”

TTC and Transit City Planners have apparently decided. All we need is a ride to Kennedy station, and that’s it. No consideration that the Scarborough Town Centre is the logical hub for radial transit lines to the rest of Scarborough and beyond (and beside the 401), no connections to the Toronto Zoo (a City owned venue), and (unbelievable), no new routes to the downtown core.

Steve: Transit City does not take everyone to Kennedy Station. Yes, it’s a major hub but not the only one. As for the Zoo, there has already been a request from Council for a study of building a spur line to it. However, you don’t build a multi-million dollar line to a tourist destination with comparatively small demand. UTSC has far more claim for the first extension of the Sheppard LRT.

New lines to downtown? That’s GO’s territory with proposed new service on the CPR line through Agincourt to North Pickering as well as improved service on the Uxbridge subdivision (which also happens to serve Kennedy Station). Oddly enough, a lot of people are going places other than downtown.

Where are the studies to show that this route would get people out of cars? If getting to Kennedy was such a motivator for people to get out of cars as the Scar-Malbern LRT planners want you to believe, why do tens of thousands of cars drive by Kennedy and Warden subway stations every day? Why remove right hand turn lanes (jamming up the remaining lanes) as well as left hand turn lanes, despite enormous public opposition? There is more than enough space for both and still have bike lanes and other improvements to the public realm, yet the Scarborough Malvern LRT Planners have not made a single concession on any of these issues, despite noting them in the record.

Steve: You appear to be railing specifically against the Scarborough-Malvern line, although you tar the entire Transit City network with the same brush.

Eastern residents would be serving the public much better with modest extensions to the BD subway each year instead of costly and unproven streetcar routes and technology. We all know subways are far most expensive but other great “transit cities” of the world, including New York, Sydney and of course London, use subways to reach out to the boroughs. In fact I am in London now on business and use the tube and rail lines every day. “Trams” (their word for streetcars) are regarded as a joke, and many English cities have abandoned LRT technology and gone back to subways.

However, that will never happen because of the “subways are too expensive” crowd” and the beleif that surface LRT can be deployed instead of subways.

Steve: “Streetcar” technology is proven and in use in many great cities. London is gradually reintroducing streetcars as are many other cities in the UK, and Paris has a growing system. The technology is growing in use all over Europe. As for subways in England, they are not building any. You are badly misinformed.

So, Steve hear me out. If a new LRT line was created, consider a line from the Scarborough Town Centre straight along Ellesmere to the U of T Scarborough Campus. You’d also be serving Rouge Valley Health, and have same or more redevelopment opportunities. Alternatively, a rapid transit line (LRT fine) should run from Pickering to the Lakeshore, mostly along Kingston Road, and partially underground approaching Birchmount down to Queen Street. That would be the only way to relieve the thousands of commuters arriving from the 905 area.

Transit City is a huge step BACKWARDS. It’s public transit but not RAPID transit and not going to do anything but create more exhaust fumes and long rides (in a private auto or trudging along on an LRT) for people in Scarborough and Etobicoke.

Steve: Demand from the 905 will be met with improved GO service on the Lake Shore corridor plus new service on the CP line to North Pickering. This is already in Metrolinx’ 25-year plan. Transit City is not intended for trips across the breadth of the city, but for the large and growing demand to go between many suburban destinations.

Steve,
You are correct, with the exception of London, no totally new subway systems in England, and also correct I was mixing my objections for the SMLRT with my objections top the entire Transit City plan.

So let me net it out why I think the City/TTC “Transit City” plan is not really furthering much of a transit city.

-Don’t like the flat out assertion that LRT on a ROW in the middle of a street will replace the need for higher order transit

-Ignores the fact that LRT running on a separate ROW someplace else like the Scarborough RT, (in a rail corridor, roads that are not at capacity), or elevated, or in some case at the side of the street, would be much more effective rapid transit yet still close enough to the people and building that the lines would support. Nope, with the sole exception of the soon-to-be-converted SRT, Giambrone wants it down the middle of the street no matter what.

-No parking allowed along Transit City lines because of the ideology that all cars are bad. Funny how GO Transit stations in Toronto (like Guildwood, Rouge, Eglinton, Scarborough) have parking lots that are full, despite being in urban areas allegedly served by the TTC.

-Like fellow commenter Stephen Cheung says, the City and the TTC feel the best way to make the obvious deficiencies in their transit plans more palatable is to make private auto use artificially harder to use. Witness the loss of traffic lanes on routes like the EG Cross Town LRT, crazy turn restrictions, and the continual removal of road options in and around town (Eastern, Dundas and Gerrard down to one lane for a choke point east of the Don). Almost none of this will improve transit.

Steve: I’m jumping in here to reply to the points this far as they are one group within the longer list. I and the LRT advocates have never said that LRT on street will replace the need for higher order transit, but with the proviso that if the demand for such service is extremely distant (many decades) or unlikely ever to materialize (due to demand level), then the corridor will never get beyond LRT. The intent is to improve on the limitations of bus service without the huge expense of subway construction.

It’s important to distinguish between what TTC and City staff want to build and “what Giambrone wants”. In some cases the staff have convinced him of the superiority of a certain implementation, but if there’s a good counterargument, it needs to be made. Doing this to staff as part of the EA process has limited benefit for obvious reasons. There are locations on Eglinton where side-of-the-road operation deserves at least a detailed review, not a cursory dismissal based in part on the TTC’s bad reaction to the Queen’s Quay proposal which is for a totally different environment.

No parking on TC lines? Well, on Sheppard East there’s little parking today, and the same applies on several other parts of the TC lines as parking is not generally allowed on arterials anyhow. GO stations have parking lots because that’s how people get to the train in the absence of good feeder bus services and a dispersed set of trip origins. Being on a bus route doesn’t mean they are well served by it. However, GO itself knows that parking cannot expand forever, and planned improvements including frequent all-day service qill require their stations to become transit hubs, not just bigger parking lots.

On Eglinton, the line is going underground from Brentcliffe to Black Creek specifically to avoid an unacceptable impact on the narrow street above. I and other TC supporters are still battling with folks in TTC planning who are trying to shoehorn surface operations into similar neighbourhoods on other TC routes. Also, those left turn proposals are really bad, and I and others have criticised them at length. The Eglinton EA was pushed through with only the Executive Summary published and I still have not seen the detailed traffic analyses to back up the proposed configuration. As for narrowed streets, you will have to talk to the cycling lobby. By the way, the “choke point” on Gerrard east of the Don is caused by parking. It’s a four lane street in a busy commercial area. Get used to it.

-Lack of understanding of the transit need in Scarborough, Etobicoke and the northern part of North York. Even you Steve don’t seem to get it, e.g.

“Demand from the 905 will be met with improved GO service on the Lake Shore corridor plus new service on the CP line to North Pickering. This is already in Metrolinx’ 25-year plan. Transit City is not intended for trips across the breadth of the city, but for the large and growing demand to go between many suburban destinations”

…yah, so all of the people I see driving their cars ever day from 905 country down Kingston Road, St. Clair East, Eglinton, Lawrence, they will all be served by service improvements in an existing GO Transit line and a new one in the 25-year plan,….

25 year plan? Are you serious? The problem exists today Steve, and will only get worse, much worse with time (e.g. growth) and Transit City (reduction in traffic capacity along major routes).

Steve: I didn’t say that the lines would be built 25 years from now, but that they are part of the overall plan. Work is already in progress on track improvements on the Lake Shore corridor. GO owns the Uxbridge subdivision and is working on plans to improve service there. They have bought the Don Branch, a CP connecting line from Leaside to Union Station on the east side of the Don Valley, so that they can get trains from the North Pickering service into Union via a track the CP would otherwise have abandoned (it has been inactive for a few years). GO has an extensive plan for service improvements and extensions that will roll out over the next decade.

There is a horrendous backlog in construction of more transit capacity, and part of this is due both to a focus on subways as the “only” sollution and to starvation of GO by Queen’s Park during an era of fast suburban population growth. Commuter rail, like LRT, avoids the high cost of subway construction, but while we should have driven all-day GO service well into the 905, we did almost nothing. The 905’s really big problem is not getting into downtown, but getting around within the 905 and the outer 416 where transit services have a low share of the market and difficulty competing (not to mention getting funding).

If I read your position correctly, you would solve this by a lot of subway building. That will not happen for the simple reason that we cannot afford it. The current estimated cost of taking the Yonge subway from Finch to Richmond Hill is over $4-billion, roughly half a billion per kilometer. That will serve people who want to travel north-south in the Yonge corridor, and to a lesser extent those who would use it to connect between east-west bus services, but it won’t address many problems in the central 905. York Region wants to upgrade VIVA to a BRT operation with its own right of way (yes, in the middle of the street), and part of this is already approved for construction. However, there are locations where that BRT will have an impact on other road users. York’s eventual goal, in theory anyhow, is an LRT network, but that’s a long way off, and a subway is out of the question.

And as for Transit City serving suburban destinations, again I ask you how will the Scarborough Town Centre be better served by Transit City? For that matter how will transport to UTSC be dramatically improved with either a spur line from the Sheppard LRT, or the SMLRT? If you are north of Malvern Town Centre you will need to take a bus to the Malvern Town Centre, transfer to the extended Scarborough RT, then transfer to Sheppard LRT which takes you to UTSC, or worse, transfer again to the Scarborough Malvern LRT (because it was deemed unnecessary to have it terminate at the Malvern Town Centre).

That is progress? And there multi-billion dollar projects carried out by the brain trust at the City and the TTC? Even you think they mis-managed St, Clair what makes you think they’ll get it right this time, but on larger, multiple projects running simultaneously?

Steve: The portions of the S(L)RT and the SMLRT north of Sheppard were cut from the initial implementation for budget reasons, but I agree that at least one of them (probably the SLRT) should be built. The problem is when this will happen. As for serving STC, I could equally argue that it is an artificial destination, and that the focus of bus routes on that station drags people out of their way for trips that are not STC-oriented. If UTSC is accessed from the north, this would provide a link over to Don Mills Station on a service running faster and more reliably than the Sheppard East bus.

STC is in a horrible location from a transit point of view. It was a road-oriented development built on land assembled by Eaton’s, and there was no thought to how it might fit into a transit network. (Ditto Yorkdale that was developed by Trizec.) We’re stuck with that location, but should not gerrymander the entire transit system to serve STC. People in Scarborough don’t all want to go there any more than all 416 commuters want to go downtown.

Scarborough is not easy to serve with transit, given the dispersed nature of its development and demand patterns. However, it will eventually have many TTC and GO services providing options for short and long trips. There’s a challenge in fare integration between the systems, but that’s a bureaucratic issue, not one of LRT or subway technology.

1) It does not cost as much so there is not as much opportunity to pad costs and rake in excess profits.

2) It does not take as long to build (St. Clair is not a normal situation) therefore it cannot keep construction workers employed as long nor will it need as many.

3) You actually get to see the outside world instead of those wonderful tunnel walls. The tunnelled portion of Eglinton will still provide the opportunity to see concrete walls or tunnel liners.

4) It forms part of the transportation grid system rather than a downtown oriented radial system.. This means that you do not get a one seat ride to King and Bay but you can get around the suburbs a lot faster.

Most of you are to young to remember but the TTC ran a radial system of buses until about ’62 or ’63. These buses all fed the streetcar loops or Eglinton Station. The bus on Lawrence East ran down Victoria Park to Luttrell Loop. If you wanted to go to Don Mills and Lawrence you had to take the street car to Pape and transfer. There was a lot of hew and cry when people lost the 1 seat ride to the street car but ridership took off … when the new routes started.

I agree that we need a downtown relief line that goes from at least Don Mills and Eglinton to downtown. I would like to see it have very limited stops to provide high speed service then go up the Weston sub to the airport instead of that dumb Pearson Rail Link line. If Metrolinx gave two of the multitude of rails in this corridor to a segregated rapid transit line it would cut down on the number of GO trains that would need to be run, provide better service to the residents of Weston, North Etobicoke and workers at the airport. The line should avoid Union station and go under Richmond or Adelaide and connect with the YUS line at both King or both Queen stations.

The problem with the existing TTC lines, especially in the downtown is the lack of good parking and turn restrictions. The street cars and buses cannot provide fast service because of all the parked cars and many turns. Buses are really not much better at getting through intersections because they get stuck behind cars making right hand turns that have to wait for the pedestrians to clear. Perhaps Toronto should put in more proper scrambles where the pedestrians have a totally separate phase, not like Dundas and Yonge, so that right hand turns could still be made.

Most merchants are afraid of loosing even two hours of on street parking by saying it would hurt their business, but if there were more transit riders then business would probably improve. See the article on Rapid Transit and Local Shopping.